News Releases

VCAA is proud to Announce the Winner of the Third Annual Rod Charko Service Award

November 17, 2016 – Calgary, AB - Alice Reimer is the winner of the third annual Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA) Rod Charko Service Award.

Alice Reimer is a successful tech entrepreneur and dedicated community mentor and leader. She co-founded Calgary-based Evoco, leading the innovative software firm from initial concept through to a 2012 aquiisition Evoco's technology ecame the standard construction management system for global retailers including Home Depot, Walmart and Luxottica. Most recently, Alice was the CEO of Chaordix, a pioneering software leader in the crowdsourcing and open innovation space, with global clients including LEGO, Proctor & Gamble, KPMG and IBM. Alice was the recipient of the PROFIT's W100 designation as one of Canada's Top Female Entrepreneurs andwas named one of Alberta's 50 Most Influential People for 2013. She is on the Board of the A100 and is the Board Chair for Startup Calgary.

Alberta Enterprise Invests $10 million into Accelerate Fund II

November 17, 2016 – Edmonton, AB - Alberta Enterprise Corporation announced today that it has launched a second early-stage angel co-investment fund, Accelerate Fund II, with a $10 million investment. Accelerate Fund II will provide local entrepreneurs with a great new resource for startup capital. Managed by yaletown Partners, Accelerate Fund II will continue to have tThe A100 act as the operators of it's industry committee.

This new fund has been created to continue to build the Alberta innovation ecosystem by investing along side angel investors in early-stage technology companies. It will also focus significant efforts on further development of the ecosystem. More details here.

McRock Capital leads $6 million Series a funding of Decisive Farming

November 1, 2016 - Decisive Farming Corp, an Irricana, Alberta-based agricultural technology company, has raised $6 million in a Series A financing. The round was led by Canadian venture capital firm McRock Capital and joined by Export Development Canada. With the financing, McRock's whitney Rockley will join the company's board. Led by CEO Remi schmaltz, Decisive Farming delivers precision solutions and mobiile and cloud software tools to crop farms and agriculture sercie providers. More details here.

Alberta Enterprise Corporation invests $5 million with Avrio Capital

February 8, 2016 – Edmonton, AB - Alberta Enterprise Corporation announced today that it has invested $5 million as a limited partner in Avrio Ventures III, a $108 million agriculture and food technology venture capital (VC) fund based in Calgary.

The investment in Avrio III marks Alberta Enterprise's first capital placement since their new capital allocation from the Government of Alberta was announced in the fall of 2015. This investment supports one of the province's key sectors - agriculture - and the diversification and creation of value added agriculture products and technologies. More details here.

EnerTech Capital is Named in the 2015 Global Cleantech 100 as Winner of the "Financial Investor of the Year" Award

January 25, 2016 – Toronto, ON - EnerTech Capital, a private Venture Capital firm focused a private Venture Capital firm focused on investing in mid stage companies that offer products or services that dramatically improve the profitability of producing or consuming energy was named “Financial Investor of the Year” as part of the 2015 Global Cleantech 100 program. The program which is produced by Cleantech Group, has a mission is to connect corporates to sustainable innovation through its i3 Connect platform and global events.

The Global Cleantech 100 represents the most innovative and promising ideas in clean tech. Featuring companies that are best positioned to solve tomorrow’s clean technology challenges, Global Cleantech 100 is a comprehensive list of private companies with the highest potential to make the most significant market impact.

As one of the top financial investment companies in cleantech, EnerTech Capital was the recipient of this year’s “Financial Investor of the Year” Award. The Financial Investor of the Year is awarded each year to the financial investor with the highest proportion of Global Cleantech 100 companies in that year's list, as a percentage of their overall qualifying portfolio (subject to having a minimum of 10 companies that 'qualify' as possible Global Cleantech 100 companies).

We are honored today to accept this prestigious award. Since 1996, we have maintained our focus on the Energy Technology/Cleantech sector and are currently investing out of our fourth fund. We would like to thank The Cleantech Group for the work they have done through the Cleantech 100 program to build a global ecosystem which brings together a great combination of Companies, Venture funds and Strategic investors to help build successful Cleantech Companies” said Wally Hunter, Managing Director EnerTech Capital.

The Global Cleantech 100 list is collated by combining proprietary Cleantech Group research data, with weighted qualitative judgments of hundreds of nominations, and specific inputs from a global 100-person Expert Panel. To qualify for the list, companies must be independent, forprofit, cleantech companies that are not listed on any major stock exchange.

This year, a record number of nominations were received: 6,900 distinct companies from 60 countries. These companies were weighted and scored to create a short list of 323 companies. Short-listed nominees were reviewed by Cleantech Group’s Expert Panel, resulting in a finalized list of 100 companies from 17 countries.

The 100-member expert panel was drawn equally from leading financial investors and representatives of multi-national corporations and industrials active in technology and innovation scouting across Asia, Europe, and North America. The composition of the expert panel broadly represents the global cleantech community, from pioneers and leaders to veterans and new entrants. The diversity of panellists results in a list of companies that command an expansive base of respect and support from many important players within the global cleantech innovation ecosystem.

The Global Cleantech 100 provides us with insight into the collective opinion ofkey market players on which megatrends and innovation companies are most likely to have a significant impact in the next 5-10 years,” said Michele Parad, Senior Manager at Cleantech Group and lead author of the Global Cleantech 100 Report. “Now in its 7th year, the Global Cleantech 100 program reveals whichthemes are staying relevant and which sectors are taking center stage.” For the full press release - click here.

EnerTech Capital promotes Dean Sciorillo to Managing Director

December 6, 2015 – Philadelphia, PA and Toronto, ON - EnerTech is pleased to announce the promotion of Dean Sciorillo to Managing Director. He will become a full General Partner upon closing of EnerTech V.

Dean has spent over 11 years at EnerTech working his way up within the organization from Analyst through his promotion to Director in 2014. Dean has had an extensive career in the Power and Energy Technology industries, and prior to joining EnerTech he spent 15 years with Exelon Corporation, including a series of operational and finance roles with their generation department, and also worked within their corporate venture capital group. Dean has played an active role within a number of the portfolio companies in EnerTech III-IV and currently sits on the board of EnergySavvy (EnerTech IV).

Wally Hunter, Managing Director, EnerTech Capital, said: "We are very pleased to promote Dean. He has demonstrated the skills, capabilities, dedication and work ethic to become a Managing Director with out Firm. Dean is a key part of our team going forward, will help build our future investment strategy and will be active in our fundraising process for EnerTech V".

Bill Kingsley, Managing Director, said: "Dean has done an exceptional job for us throughout his various roles and has earned the respect of many CEOs, co-investors and his partners. The firm is thrilled for Dean.

Scott Ungerer, Founder & Managing Director, said: "I have worked directly with Dean on numerous files since he joined EnerTech. His skill set has expanded from being our most trusted financial assessment expert to include becoming a general business sounding board and advisor for company CEOs. At every company Dean has engaged, company senior management sees him as a one of their top tier 'go to' buisness experts with a particularily unique ability that constructively helps them to assess shareholder value implications of various business strategies. He has earned the move to Managing Director."

Dean Sciorillo said: "I am grateful to the EnerTech Partners for their support in my new role as Managing Director and look forward to continuing to work with the team to provide our investors with superior returns and building the expansion of the firm."

EnerTech Capital continues its strong focus on significant energy related technology investment opportunities in North America. Having closed its most recent $120 million fund in August 2013, ten new investments have been made, including Blue Pillar, Distech Controls (sold to Acuity Brands), Encycle, EnergySavvy, GeoDigital International, HPC Energy, N-Dimension, Space Time Insight, Terralux, and Western Oilfield Services.